Michele Thomas is an American jazz musician, vocalist, songwriter and educator from Chicago, IL. Born the daughter of a Pentecostal preacher in the Church of God In Christ, Thomas grew up on a steady diet of gospel music. The impact it had on her, even at a young age, was profound.

These feelings, along with her innate talents, led to Thomas arranging and conducting her church’s choir while she was still in her preteen years. Her continued cultivation of those skills rewarded her with a position in the Chicago All-City Choir and a scholarship to the Sherwood Conservatory of Music. This ultimately led to her attending North Park University, graduating with a BA in music, and establishing the first-ever gospel choir in the university’s history. Thomas’ cultivation of the choir program caught the eyes of community choir leaders in Sweden and in 1996 and 1998, she was invited to teach and perform gospel music for Scandinavian audiences. These collective experiences furthered her dedication to music education and in 2004 she formed the Soulstream Music Studio of Contemporary Voice.

Thomas has taught voice and choir at Claredon Hills Music Academy, Merit School of Music, Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church and the Maywood Fine Arts Association. She was a featured clinician focusing on CCM singing for Mark S. Hubbard’s (former president of the Grammys' Chicago Chapter) Chicago Made Music Collective, and Next Showcase Chicago. She currently teaches jazz voice and is the director of the DePaul Vocal Jazz Ensemble at DePaul University.

Thomas has performed both jazz and gospel music regionally and abroad. As a bandleader, she has appeared at such prestigious Chicago venues as the Green Mill, Winter’s Jazz Club, Pete Miller’s and Green Dolphin Street, as well as featured performances at the Jazz Showcase, Constellation, Chicago City Winery and Andy’s Jazz Club. She has also been invited to perform at concerts and festivals presented by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, Little Black Pearl Workshop, the Edgerton Arts Council, the Evanston and Wicker Park Chambers of Commerce, and Northwestern University. In 2017, Thomas was a featured performer at the Chicago Jazz Festival.

Doug Bistrow received his degree from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where he majored in string bass performance and jazz & contemporary media. Giving over 150 concerts per year, he has performed with Itzhak Perlman, the Silk Road Ensemble, Edgar Meyer, Howard Levy, The Metropolitan Jazz Octet, Time For Three, Johnny Osborne, Ky-Mani Marley, Corey Chisel, Keith & Tex, and many others. Bistrow is a member of the Chicago Philharmonic, the Metropolis Symphony, and the Rockford Symphony Orchestra. He is on the faculty at VanderCook College of Music and the Merit School of Music, where he teaches double bass, jazz studies, music history and music theory. He also owns and operates Audio Bistro Recording Studio in Chicago's Logan Square.

Matt Hudson (MMEd ‘10) is a jazz guitarist from Erie, PA, currently teaching guitar and band at Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences. Hudson began his formal music studies at the University of Pittsburgh in 1999. He won the Mellon Bank Jazz Scholarship, which gave him the chance to study with saxophonist Nathan Davis and world-renowned guitarist Joe Negri.

Hudson has a voracious appetite for jazz improvisation and studied many eras of the form with a particular emphasis on blues and bebop. He became a regular fixture at jam sessions in Pittsburgh and by the time he graduated in 2003, he was performing in many top venues with artists such as Gene Stovall, Reggie Watkins, The Marvelettes, Jay Willis and Curtis Fuller. By the end of that year, Hudson decided to settle in Chicago to pursue creative opportunities that blended r&b, hip hop, jazz and rock. This began a fertile period for Hudson marked by collaborations with William Kurk Enterprise, Siji, Aaron Getsug, Scott Hessy and Karl E.H. Siegfried.

In 2006, Hudson met producer and DJ Anthony Nicholson and his son Quincy Nicholson. This began his affiliation with the jazz recording group Scientific Map. Over the course of five years, this group recorded and toured in support of releases for the Imaginary Chicago Records label.

Jazz pianist, composer and jazz piano instructor Steve Million has lived and worked in Chicago since 1988, having previously lived and worked in Kansas City, MO, and New York. He has taught jazz piano privately at Merit School of Music since 2002, has developed an innovative jazz piano class, and leads the Honors Jazz Combo, made up of some of the finest young musicians in Chicago. From 1995 until 2002, Million taught jazz piano at Benedictine University in Lisle, IL. In 1988, he was a semi-finalist in the internationally renowned Thelonious Monk Piano Competition.

Since 2005, Million has held a steady gig performing five nights a week with the Eric Hochberg Trio at the popular downtown Chicago restaurant Catch 35. Among the artists who have performed with the trio are Dee Alexander, Sarah Marie Young, Greg Ward, Andy Brown, Pat Mallinger, Geof Bradfield and Victor Garcia. Million has three CD releases on Palmetto Records: Million to One (1995), Thanks a Million (1997) and Truth Is (1999). These recordings featured Million’s writing, playing and arranging skills in the company of artists such as Randy Brecker, Chris Potter, Dick Oatts, Steve Cardenas, Ron Vincent and Micheal Moore. His other releases include the trio recording Poetic Necessities (2002, BluJazz Records) and a solo piano release, Remembering the Way Home (2008, Origin). In addition Million co-leads a band with trombonist Andy Baker called BakerzMillion that released a CD in 2010 entitled Mood Point. The band has a new digital release to be released this fall on the esteemed Delmark Records label.

Darren Scorza is a musician, music educator, clinician and project studio owner. He has been teaching drums and percussion in the Chicagoland area for over 20 years. Currently he is drumset instructor at North Park University and teaches jazz percussion at William Rainey Harper College. In addition, he teaches percussion and is jazz band director at Notre Dame College Prep.

Scorza draws from his performance experience in both drumset and classical percussion areas to create a unified teaching method blending these two diverse performance settings. He has over 65 recordings in his discography as a drumset player, percussionist and recordist/mixer. He has performed with artists including Bobby Enriquez, the Platters and Eddie Harris, as well as performing and recording with varied local artist such as Michele Thomas, Jeannie Tanner, Elaine Dame, John Bany, Keri Johnsrud, Ari Seder, the Waystation, the Metropolitan Jazz Octet and Jeff Hedberg’s C11. He also serves as music director and drummer for his wife’s Michele Thomas & Soulmeme quintet.